Juliette sometimes looks at photos and says that his feet look like mine. His toes haven't quite lost that round, chubby, baby toe-ness, not yet. But his feet are getting longer and narrower.

Last night he decided that he wanted to take a shower—I think he was tired of waiting for his sister to finish her chores. He doesn't do this often yet, but he will. And then this kind of picture—of which I must have hundreds—will get fewer and farther between. The girls will still be taking baths for a while, of course. I suppose that softens the blow a bit, but each child is an individual, and parenting each one is its own story. Having younger kids doesn't really make me miss the oldest's littleness any less.

"Dinner is just about ready," I say. "It's time to clean up and come inside."

"OK!" she says.

A few minutes later I return. She is stooped over in the middle of lawn, picking up leaves one by one. The yard is still littered with toys.

"Eve, come on," I say. "You can play with the leaves some other time. You have to clean up and come in to dinner now."

"No! I'm not playing!" she insists. "I have to put the leaves in my collection!"

Around the corner, next to the crowd of tricycles and scooters, lies a little pile of yellow and green, fading to brown. She crouches down and places the leaf in her fingers right in the middle.

"Is that your collection?" I ask.

"Yes," she says. She's so proud.

I don't know why fingers get wrinkly when you've been in the pool or the bath too long. I don't know why she wants to wear her goggles in the pool when she refuses to put her face in the water. There are lots of things I don't know. That's just how it is.

They found a worm that had died after the sprinklers had been on. They felt it deserved a proper burial, so they built a little cairn and solemnly stood over it, and said a few words.

Afterwards, he told me I should call this picture "Our friend the dead, bloody worm."

It is October. A cool morning that settled into a pleasantly warm Saturday afternoon, the way an October Saturday does in San Diego. Around the house, the Halloween decorations have begun going up, and the kids are excited. They have only recently finished being excited about a birthday, and soon they will be excited about Christmas. Every season has its presents or candies to look forward to. Sometimes both.

By this time she is three, but on the wall she is still a baby, and her brother is barely done being a toddler.

There above the dining table she is still a baby today, younger than her baby sister. And—for now—she is the same age as the brother that smiles above the spot where she used to eat her cereal. The brother that eats his cereal in the living room these days is, of course, still her senior.

If the shift in tense is confusing, just stop and consider the layers of "now" that are in that kitchen. An October afternoon. A morning in May. An April weekday as I write this. Whenever it is that you read it. Photography is weird.

The boy took one look at the new floors and started to cry. "I think I'm going to throw up!" he said. I always thought that my sentimentality and resistance to change had to do with the fact that we moved so many times when I was a child, but he's the same way—perhaps even more so.

The girl took a few steps in, turned her head to take it all in, and with a sunny smile declared, "I like them!" Though, it was not immediately obvious whether she actually liked them or was just saying the opposite of what her brother said.

The baby hasn't given an opinion yet, nor do I expect her to. By the time she's able to say anything, she will have long since forgotten that there was ever carpet in the living room—if, indeed, she hasn't already. Her knees slip a bit more when she tries to crawl in her pajamas, but she takes it all in stride, like everything. Onward and upward, that's her motto.

"Look!" he says, his voice bright with excitement and pride. "I'm a mountain!"

"Yes you are," I say, smiling.

By the time I turn to go back to whatever chore I was doing, he is already busy burying his sister in her own little hill of toys. Their squeals of laughter follow me down the hall.

"My bird is a girl and her name is Fifa," she says. "She has to take a nap because it's dark outside."

It is November and the days are shorter, it's true. But even so, it's not dark by three in the afternoon.

Having taken a little time off to regroup, I've decided to start up my print sales again. This month I am tweaking the format a bit: as before, each month I'll offer a new print. However, I'll no longer automatically be taking the print down at the end of the month. Depending on how it's going, I may keep a print going for a few extra days, months, or even make it available permanently.

Additionally, I'll be offering each print in a selection of sizes and price points. All prints will be in an open edition, but signed and numbered.

This month I'm offering a new one from my "Wash Before Next Use" series, creatively titled "Color #63." Check out my prints page for all of the details.

A year ago, when this photo was taken, her hair was longer and they were both smaller. But already they barely fit into the bath tub together. How is it that they still manage to squeeze in there, side by side, today? Somehow, they do. Not for too much longer, I think. But perhaps by the time he's finally outgrown bathtime with his sister, the baby will be ready to take his place.